


Milestones

by laughter_now



Series: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder-'verse [7]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Schmoop, family fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughter_now/pseuds/laughter_now
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth was, Jim would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It had been the right choice, and it was the reason why he was not up in space now, exploring new worlds and fighting old enemies, but sitting on their living room floor, his back to the sofa and his PADD on the low table in front of him, comparing his schedule for the next month with Bones', no matter how scarily domestic it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Milestones

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything associated with the Star Trek franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> This story is part of the "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"-'verse, though it can be read as a complete standalone. It was written in response to a prompt on a schmoop-bingo card, which might give you an impression of the direction where this is going. The prompt was "Baby - first steps".
> 
> First posted to my lj-journal on July 17th, 2010.

**Milestones**  
  
  
"We need to figure out what to do about Monday in two weeks," Jim said, absently scratching his head with his stylus, looking up at Bones across the living room table.  
  
Five years ago, hell, maybe even as little as three years ago, he would have laughed at everyone who said that this was what his life was going to look like a few years down the line, but here he was. Even more so, he liked it. Wouldn't miss it for the world, even if he spent his Saturday evening brooding over his and Bones' schedules for the upcoming weeks.  
  
He had two great five year tours aboard the Enterprise, and he had been sad when they ended – more so, he had been hesitant and also a little scared that being planetside wasn't going to work out for him – but it had been time. There had been too many close calls, too many times when he had nearly lost his life or worse, when he had nearly lost Bones.  
  
They had both been ready for this, even though in the beginning it had been obvious that Bones was worried about it, too. Mostly, that he was worried Jim was going to regret it.  
  
Truth was, Jim would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It had been the right choice, and it was the reason why he was not up in space now, exploring new worlds and fighting old enemies, but sitting on their living room floor, his back to the sofa and his PADD on the low table in front of him, comparing his schedule for the next month with Bones'.  
  
They had to, even though it sounded scarily domestic and not like something James T. Kirk would have thought himself capable of just a few years ago. Jim needed to be in San Francisco at Starfleet Command three or four times a week because there were far too many things Starfleet Intelligence wouldn't even allow him to work on from at home. And Bones had only finished a time-consuming research project the previous month and they were only slowly finding their way back into his normal rhythm of clinic- and teaching duties at Atlanta General. Hence the elaborate planning.  
  
The reason why they needed to plan their schedules this far in advance – and also the reason why Jim was sitting on the floor rather than on the sofa – was sitting to Jim's left, completely absorbed in the task of pushing his toy-hovercars across the living room rug.  
  
David was the real reason why Jim didn't regret giving up space, not for one second. A little more than seven months after they had switched the Captain's quarters aboard Enterprise for a house in Georgia, the adoption had come through. Now, a bit more than a year after that, David was a healthy fourteen month old toddler whose favorite pastime was to crawl out of sight and into the tiniest nooks and crannies as soon as his fathers turned away for just one second.  
  
Before David, Jim had never thought little kids could be that fast. Their son had taught him differently, and very quickly.  
  
Though right now for once he didn't seem interested in exploring. He was far too fascinated by his set of hovercars. They had been a gift from his uncle Sam for his first birthday two months ago, and ever since then he didn't let the small hovering toys out of his sight. Jim was glad for it, though, because right now it meant that David was pretty much occupying himself for a while. He would push the cars around the rug for a while, and when that lost its appeal he would pull himself up on the sofa table, then slowly put the cars up on the table too, one by one, only to push them over the edge, laughing and clapping excitedly as they soared and hovered a little before they glided to the ground.  
  
The problem about excited clapping was that he had to let go of the table for that, and since David's sense of balance when he was standing was…precarious at times, those shows of excitement occasionally ended up with David following the cars' path, without the added advantage of a hover-mechanism to break his fall.  
  
That was the reason why Jim was sitting in front of the sofa, right beside David, with his left hand hovering somewhere in the vicinity of David's diaper-clad bottom, just in case he'd start wobbling again. Half his attention was on what their son was doing, while the other half was busy trying to figure out what to do about Monday in two weeks.  
  
"I have to be at the hospital," Bones grumbled, flipping through his own PADD. He was sitting on David's other side, though he had picked sitting in an armchair with a mumbled comment about how he was too old to sit on the floor. Considering that only yesterday Jim had come home to find his husband and son rolling around on the living room floor, engaged in a full-blown tickling war, that was a lie if Jim had ever heard one. "There's a board meeting that day, and I can't send Sanchez in my stead, not when it's about them possibly cutting funds for the department."  
  
Jim sighed, shifting through his schedule for that day once more.  
  
"When is that meeting?"  
  
"11am," Bones replied. "Before that is not a problem. But it's the week when daycare closes at 3pm because they're short-staffed. So even if I drop him off before I leave, I won't be out in time to pick him up."  
  
Jim shook his head. It wouldn't work out, not even with the daycare center they occasionally left David at when they absolutely couldn't manage to coordinate their appointments. "Admiral Bartlett scheduled the bi-annual intelligence report months ago. He's going to kill me if I cancel the meeting, and I'd say it's a safe bet the report won't be finished in time to pick David up from daycare, either."  
  
Bones was absently tapping his stylus against his lips, but before Jim could really appreciate the sight, he noticed movement from the corner of his eye. Almost automatically, his hand moved along with David's movement as he put pudgy fingers atop the table and pulled himself up. Jim wasn't helping him, though, just keeping his hand out in case he had to break any falls.   
  
However, David managed to get up just fine, and Jim focused on his PADD again.  
  
"So we both can't cancel our appointments, and we can't leave him at daycare, either. That means we have to find someone to watch him until one of us gets home."  
  
"I could call Ma."  
  
"Think she'll be free that day?" Jim frowned. Bones' mother was still working, even if she was no longer teaching full-time, so there was a good chance that she couldn't just take a school day off, not even with a two week notice.  
  
Bones shrugged. "We'll see." He checked the chrono on the wall. "I'll comm her tomorrow and ask. It's not as if she wasn't looking for reasons to come over and baby-sit, anyway."  
  
That much was true. Eleanor was, to put it in plain words, completely besotted with her grandson. As long as her work schedule permitted it, she was always willing to come to their help and look after David.  
  
"Vroom!" David squealed, sending one of his hovercars off the edge of the sofa table, laughing loudly as its hover-mechanism made it twirl in the air a little before it fell down. Jim could never get enough of the sound of David's open and completely joyous laughter, and he looked up from his PADD with a wide smile on his face. Their son was bouncing up and down, both hands on the table for support, watching as the little car glided a foot or two before it came to rest beside Bones' leg.  
  
"Vroom, all right," Bones said, leaning down so that he was at David's eyelevel. "You're gonna help me convince her tomorrow, right David? We're going to call your Nana right after breakfast."  
  
"Na!" David clapped his hands again. Jim wasn't too sure if their son really understood what Bones was talking about. His conversation skills still consisted of one-syllable words for the main part, and while 'Na' mostly meant Eleanor, David still had problems associating names with the idea of a person while they weren't there. When his grandmother was around, there was no doubt what 'Na' meant, but at breakfast it could just as easily mean 'banana'. For the most part, they simply assumed that David understood what they were talking about.  
  
"That's right, your Nana. We're gonna call her tomorrow after breakfast, and you have to help me convince her to come over, okay? I'm gonna need lots of smiling and showing of those new teeth, okay?"  
  
David pushed another hovercar off the table, which probably meant yes. Or maybe it meant that he hadn't understood a word of what Bones had been saying, but like most parents, they had learned to take silence as agreement. Bones leaned over to ruffle their son's hair, then he went back to his PADD.  
  
"I'm pretty flexible with my shifts the week after that, but I've got a lecture scheduled on the 26th at 2pm. With preparations, I'm gonna be stuck at the hospital from one until six at least."  
  
Jim pulled up the 26th on his PADD and shifted through his appointments. "I got a meeting with Pike that day, but with enough advance warning he's mostly willing to reschedule. And if not, he won't mind if I take David along. It's not a formal meeting anyway, and he thinks I don't know that he's got a spaceship model tucked away in his desk for David."  
  
"Jim."  
  
Jim shook his head, already busy making a note to comm Pike the next morning to ask if he wanted to reschedule or if he could bring David along that day. Jim was spending so much time in San Francisco, Bones really needed to get over the fact that sometimes he couldn't help but take David along.  
  
"Bones, it's just a shuttle ride. David has been on shuttles before, and he loves flying."  
  
"Jim…"  
  
There was something different in Bones' voice, not the usual suffering tone his voice took on when he complained about the dangers of flying. He sounded strangely surprised and breathless, which made Jim put down his stylus and look up.  
  
Bones wasn't looking at his own schedule anymore, either. His PADD was lying abandoned on the table, and his eyes were wide as he was looking at their son. David was still standing by the table, eyes fixed on the hovercars he had pushed to the floor. The silver one – David's absolute favorite car in the set – had soared a little farther than the others, and had come to a stop next to Bones' right foot.  
  
David was eyeing the toy, clearly trying to figure out how to get it back. He was holding himself with one hand on the sofa table, and one of his legs was twitching slightly, as if he was about to make a step. Jim found himself holding his breath.  
  
David had been pulling himself up on all available pieces of furniture for a while now, and he had been walking on their hands for a few months. He just wasn't walking on his own yet, and while that was still well within the realm of the normal for his age, Jim felt his heart speed up in his chest at the sight in front of him.  
  
David eyed the toy car on the floor, stretching out his free hand as if he could possibly grab the car like that. But the distance was too big, and with bated breath Jim watched as David slowly put one foot in front of the other. For a second he wobbled, but he didn't fall over. His hand was still pressed against the table for support, but in the end the desire to retrieve his toy seemed to outweigh the need for that reassurance. His fingers let go of the edge of the table just as his legs moved to make a second step.  
  
The distance to the toy wasn't far, maybe two or three steps once he had let go of the table. The first step was careful and wobbly, but he never took his eyes off the toy, and Jim swore that there was determination in their son's expression as he took the second slow step towards the car. He nearly stumbled on the third step, but before either of them could react, he stretched out his hand and grabbed a hold of Bones' pants leg. Hand clutched tightly in the fabric for balance he crouched down and picked up his car. With a huge smile on his face, he held the car out to Bones.  
  
"Vroom!"  
  
Bones shook his head as if to shake off his astonishment, then he picked David up with a loud laugh and pulled him into his lap.  
  
"You just walked!" David just giggled, still holding his toy tightly in his hand and seemingly unconcerned by the fact that both his fathers seemed excited by what he had just done. Jim put down his PADD and scrambled over towards his husband and son in what was more an imitation of David's normal crawl than a real walk. David held the toy out to him as he knelt down beside the armchair, a wide, gap-toothed smile on his face.  
  
"Da! Vroom!"  
  
Jim couldn't help himself, he pulled David's head towards him and pressed a big kiss to his son's cheek.  
  
"You walked, junior. You realize that? You walked." He looked up at Bones, and he was sure that if he kept smiling like that the muscles in his face were going to hurt come tomorrow. "He just walked, Bones. Those were his first steps!"  
  
"I know." He pulled David more tightly against himself, but the boy started to wriggle in his lap, indicating that he wanted to be put down. As excited as his parents were, David himself didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about his most recent achievement.  
  
He crouched down and placed the toy on the floor until it hovered about an inch above the rug, then pushed it towards Jim.  
  
"Da! Car!"  
  
Jim obediently picked up the small car, imitating the squealing of old-fashioned breaks as he steered it around his leg and then back towards David, who was laughing and clapping his hands in excitement. It had become a perfectly synchronized game over the past months, one in which Jim and David kept pushing the cars between one another. David wasn't particularly interested in car chases with his different cars yet, but he couldn't get enough of pushing his favorite car to and fro. It was something he could do for hours if one of his fathers indulged him.  
  
The next time David pushed the car towards him, Jim picked it up and hid it behind his back. David squealed loudly in protest, but while Jim had hoped that maybe he'd repeat his earlier attempt at walking to get the toy back, David practically threw himself to the floor and crawled over towards Jim at an amazing speed.  
  
Jim held up his hands in mock surrender as the fourteen month old crawled towards him, and theatrically threw himself onto his back, pulling David atop of him as soon as he was in reach.  
  
"No, I give up! You win, I surrender all captured ships!"  
  
"It's a _car_ , Jim, not a ship."  
  
"I've been a starship Captain and not a racecar driver, Bones. I wouldn't know how to surrender a car to the enemy. Come to think of it, I never surrendered a ship either." He looked into David's smiling face just inches above his own. "Hear that, David? If you want your car back, you're going to have to fight for it."  
  
Bones' answer was a distant mumble about having two children instead of just one, but it faded to the background the moment Jim held out the toy car. David's eyes lightened up and he started to crawl towards it, knees digging into Jim's stomach as he searched for leverage. But Jim held him tightly by the hem of his pants, and David uttered a sound that was half-frustrated, half-laughing as Jim shook his head at him from below and kept the toy just out of his son's reach.  
  
"Oh no. You're not getting it that easy, junior. You'll get the car if I get a kiss!"  
  
David was still wriggling atop of him, trying to get to his beloved hovercar, and Jim leaned up to smack a loud kiss on David's cheek, eliciting more giggles.  
  
"There," he said. "You got your kiss. Now I get mine."  
  
He pointed to his cheek, making silly kissing noises that probably had Bones rolling his eyes, but which did their job. Still giggling, David pressed smacked a wet kiss somewhere between Jim's cheek and chin, his brown eyes widening in obvious delight as Jim handed him his beloved hovercar back.  
  
Apparently, David was not half as enthused about his newfound ability to walk, because once he had his car back he immediately crawled back to his previous position on the rug where he continued to run his hovercars around, making adorable engine noises – or what passed as engine noises in his world – which made Jim want to scoop him up and kiss him all over again.  
  
Instead, he got up and sat down on the armrest of the armchair Bones was sitting on. Almost immediately, Bones wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled Jim more tightly against his side.  
  
"He walked," Jim said, his voice still filled with awe. "He started walking."  
  
"I know." Bones replied. "You know what that means, right?"  
  
Jim turned to find his husband looking at him with one eyebrow raised, but there was a determined gleam in the other man's eyes. He groaned.  
  
"We child-proofed everything back when he started to crawl, Bones."  
  
" _Crawl_ being the operative word, Jim. If he starts walking now…God Jim, we're going to need eyes _everywhere_ from now on."  
  
Jim chuckled and turned to press a kiss against his husband's lips. "I think we'll manage just fine, Bones. Besides, if we tell Eleanor that he made his first steps, it's going to be incentive enough for her to come over and baby-sit."  
  
Bones laughed and pulled Jim more tightly against himself, arms going around his waist as they watched their son play with his hovercars. "Sneaky, Jim. Sneaky."  
  
"You like it when I get like that, admit it."  
  
One of Bones' hands started to slide across his stomach and down his hip towards his thigh. "Oh, I _love_ it when you get all scheming and sneaky. And once we get junior settled for the night, I might just show you how much I love it."  
  
Jim checked his chrono, then lifted himself out of the armchair and picked David up from the floor.  
  
"All right, David. Time for your bath, what do you say? Your Daddy and your Pops have a date for tonight."  
  
Bones rolled his eyes at him, but as he passed his armchair on his way to carry David out of the room, Jim trailed his fingers along the back of Bones' neck, and the resulting shudder was incentive enough to try and get David settled for the night quickly. After all, David's first steps were reason enough for a little celebration. Jim figured he might give Eleanor a call of his own tomorrow. Maybe she'd be willing to take David for the night, and a little sooner than in two weeks.  
  
He figured that their son's first steps were a big enough event for a little extended celebration. And looking at the way Bones was watching him as he left the room, eyes half-lidded and with more than just a spark of interest in them, Jim figured his husband was going to agree.  
  
If not, Jim would just have to convince him. He was good at that.  
  
  
 _ **The End.**_


End file.
